October 18, 1974 –
The highly influential independent film, A Woman Under the Influence, directed by John Cassavetes, starring Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk debuted on this date.
John Cassavetes could not find a distributor for the film after completion, and was at one point literally carrying the reels under his arm, from one theater to another, in hopes of getting one to play his movie. Finally, Martin Scorsese, who had recently become critically acclaimed following his film Mean Streets happened to be a huge fan of Cassavetes’ work and threatened to pull his film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore from a major New York film festival unless they accepted this film.
The Haus of Dcaligari 